


spurious soliloquies

by idaate



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Spoilers, happy birthday saihara, just a lot of. depression moods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 04:56:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12028584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idaate/pseuds/idaate
Summary: [ MAJOR V3 SPOILERS ]If everything else about him isn't real, Saihara's birthday is probably fake, too.





	spurious soliloquies

The cake lays on the ground, a stuttered mess of purple and white and blue and yellow all spun into one disaster. He’s shaking, but it’s only  _ slightly  _ so he can pass it off as anger if Saihara tries hard enough. Yumeno’s hands are to her mouth even though he knows she probably isn’t all that surprised (it’s not like she hasn’t done similar things in less stressful situations, so if she gets pissed she’d be a hypocrite) and Harukawa’s already scraping off some of the cake’s spongy substance from her arms.

“I’ll start the,” his voice cracks and he has to swallow, “s, start the washing. Machine. I’ll get it going.” His hands itch for something to do. Niya walks into the room, the cat’s greying muzzle outstretched in a yawn as he spots the cake. His tail swishes from side to side as he picks up step and begins to lick some of the frosting off of the creaking floorboards, and Saihara hurriedly leans in to pick Niya up. He mewls in frustration, but doesn’t resist too much.

“Don’t bother,” Harukawa says. “I’ll do it myself.”

“No, you already made the, you made the  _ cake--” _

“And? Did I sacrifice my arms to do that? I haven’t lost my ability to clean, suddenly.” She looks up at Saihara from under her steadily growing bangs and huffs. She hasn’t cut her hair since the game but, then again, none of them have. None of them trust each other with sharp objects anymore. (none of them trust themselves with sharp objects anymore.) “Really, Saihara.  _ You’re  _ the one whose birthday it is, right?”

“I’d,” Yumeno brings a hand to her hat, a baseball cap, not anything a witch would wear, “make you one but uh...you know.” She waves a hand, but it’s trembling even more than Saihara’s own. “Outta MP.”

“I know,” Saihara says, and pulls Niya a little closer to himself. The cat doesn’t like it, understandably, and meows angrily, digging his claws into Saihara’s shoulder. He bites his lip and only tightens his grip.  _ Dumbass.  _ “I’m gonna go. Outside, then.”

Harukawa’s already knelt down, tediously picking up chunks of cake with a piece of tissue paper and putting them into a bunched up section of her apron. She waves a hand without looking at Saihara, and Yumeno mutters something before bending over and helping, obviously avoiding talking to him in any way possible. He doesn’t blame either of them - he can’t recall the last time he’s raised his voice, let alone  _ yelled,  _ after all. 

Loud noises were scary. Loud noises were accusations, guiltless confessions, lies, crowds cheering for your demise and the sound of a robot’s corpse exploding in midair like an angel of death. None of them have an affinity for loud noises, exactly, so Saihara doesn’t blame them for hiding under their bangs.

They probably don’t blame him for his knee jerk reaction either, but that didn’t stop him from clinging onto Niya and letting the cat dig his claws into him until he was pretty certain that was blood running down his shoulder. He doesn’t let go until he slips on a pair of slippers that sits by the door (the biggest pair, robin egg blue next to a black pair and a pair dyed royal red with golden trim) and steps outside.

The weather is crisp, so Saihara pulls his button up sweater just a little closer around himself. He dimly realizes that Niya clawed through it and ripped it as well, which  _ definitely  _ sucks because this one was fairly new. Well, whatever. He deserved to suffer through a trip to the store for their sakes, now. 

The grass and flowers around Niya part like the red sea, and Saihara wades through them, smiling as they tickle his ankles. It’s a pleasant enough feeling, even if he isn’t in a pleasant enough mood himself, and he lets himself laugh for once before letting gravity take him down, down, down and then he’s got grass poking at his eyelids and petals into his nostrils.

He flips over, letting the ground soak all of him up, from the storm brewing with frightening intensity in his mind to the most despicable parts of him that he almost likes (ha!).

Niya crawls onto his chest, turning in circles before laying himself down. In moments, his back begins to rise and fall in time with the breeze. Saihara closes his eyes and lets it pass over and through him, tousling his hair and drying the water on his face. If he pretends hard enough, the brook down the ways sounds like the full bellied laugh of an astronaut, the cackle of a supreme leader, the giggle of a pianist. Then he thinks about how sickeningly  _ cliche  _ such a thought is and gags in his mouth.

“It’s dumb,” Saihara says around Niya, who has progressed from his chest to sit on his mouth, “we don’t get to know anything. I mean, like hell we’re going to try and contact Team  _ Danganronpa,  _ but.” He laughs bitterly, then coughs as he gets more fur into his mouth. “How old am I, huh? I thought it was seventeen, but I could very well be fifteen, nineteen. This… My birthday isn’t real, right? They just set it to a date that had a convenient zodiac symbol that would match my personality to a T, huh?”

The cat on his chest doesn’t respond, and Saihara inhales another mouthful of fur. “This isn’t real. What I’m feeling isn’t real. It’s just--  _ none  _ of it is, yeah?” He sits up and Niya makes a disgruntled  _ mrrow  _ sound. “You know those sorts of stories, right? Where either humanity has reached the brink of extinction or the world is being controlled by the most corrupt government of all - which I suppose  _ is  _ a way that humanity could reach the brink of extinction, who says they have to be two separate ideas - and although people think they’re in reality, they’re actually in a virtual reality of some sort. And nothing’s real and everything’s fake.” 

He runs a hand through his hair. “Or, those stories where the earth we live on right now is actually hell. I’d definitely believe it, honestly speaking.”

Niya glares at him for moving so much and he deserves it, but he gently pushes the cat off of his lap anyways. There’s a sound of the door opening, and glancing back, Saihara sees Yumeno standing in the doorframe, her silhouetted figure fidgeting with the hem of her skirt.

“We’re gonna start watchin’ the movie now,” she says, picking her nose, “if ya wanna come with. Uhm, your favorite one, right? The one about the...the ponies. But they’re in a human world? I didn’t get it.” She shrugs. “Harukawa said ya liked it, though, and since the cake is all messed up I used some magic to make some… Some caramel popcorn. Though I like cake more than popcorn, ‘cause when ya eat popcorn the little kernels get stuck between your teeth and it’s  _ really  _ unpleasant but… Eh.” She shrugs. “Come on in, if ya want.”

A voice in the back of Saihara’s mind reminds him that there is nothing wrong with living a gentle lie, and wincing at the pain beginning to grow in his shoulder, he stands up. “I’d like that,” he says softly. “Sorry for. For reacting so badly to the cake, earlier.”

Yumeno blinks innocently. “What cake?”

It makes Saihara laugh, and he gently pats the shorter girl on her head as Niya follows him into the house. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my pal Alien for drawing the piece of art that ended up being the inspiration for this fic ! http://firecrier.tumblr.com/post/165084922464/plot-twist-turns-out-i-have-birthday-art-after
> 
> Please leave comments and kudos if you enjoyed!


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